Let me start by saying that I like both games. I finished Fable 2 with maxed out stats, all the weapons, owning every building, etc, and I'm in the process of finishing Fable 3.
But here's what's been bugging me... it almost feels like Fable 3 is a downgrade from Fable 2.
The graphics are pretty much the same, you still have a loosely interesting main story which is just an excuse for you to dick around...
But what did we gain from it?
A nifty new menu, a weird social system, ton of grinding and a lost of 'organic-ness' in the system known as the road to rule and online play.
On the menu...
To me, the much talked about headquarters lost it's novelty fairly quickly. It was cool the first few times, but I'm not sure it's really any quicker. I hit start, wait a second for it all to load, walk to the room (or wait a second for the room icon to appear on the d-pad) and than I need to walk from one side of a room to another to get stuff.
How is this any faster than the old menu? I don't see it.
It's a lot prettier, can't argue... but it also comes with a lot of lost in information - You no longer have a stat page that shows you all the random stuff you used to do. You can no longer see the stats on your clothes (if they have any?). Even weapon need to be 'examined' which imply clicking in and then clicking out instead of seeing things right away.
In both game, it is possible to increase a town's wealth by buying stuff there and working there. This result in shop selling higher quality/level items. In Fable 2, you could flat out see a town's wealth... not in Fable 3... your only indication is the chatter of villager and the stales.
I'm not a big fan of all the information the new 'menu' has hidden away.
On the social system...
The social system in Fable has always been weird (people sure love them farts!), but it's even weirder now that you don't have the ability to choose which emote you'll use! Apparently, my character's first reaction when meeting a new person is to languorously dance with them - regardless of gender. Guess my Hero is that open minded (Unless I've totally missed how to change the emote, but I guess it doesn't matter, apparently I'm such a good dancer that even straight man want to be my BFF after one twirl).
And what gives with only being able to interact with 1 person at a time? This make increasing your popularity quite the chore (ties in with the grind aspect)... and well, since interacting with villagers and making friends earns you guild seals, it's actually a rather important to do now, so it's way more detrimental if you decide to ignore compared to Fable 2.
On the plus side, your wife is less likely to divorce you because you've been gone for 5 minutes now, seems the woman of Albion have build up their patience.
On the grinding...
There's a lot of grinding. Interacting with villagers is repeating the same action over and over again. You than do their quest (which is always a Fetch or Courier thing). Repeat if you want to get to another social level with them.
They also added 'decay' on houses, so every now and than you need to make a round of your property and repair all of them... which is really, really dumb, not fun and just make you waste a lot of time.
And the worse culprit are the special weapons... with upgrades attained after such fun milestone has 'kill 400 mercenary', 'make 30 friends', 'kill a 100 enemies with fireball' and so forth. Grind grind grind grind. Ugh.
And some of those grind tastic activities have to be done online (i.e. Give 20 gifts to xbox live players).
Now there was some grinding in Fable 2. After all, if you wanted to increase your Strenght, you had to beat stuff up with your swords... but the fact that you didn't have a meter going 25/300 made it a lot less glaring (to me anyway).
The road to rule
Don't like this change much. The orbs being split in 4 color/type was one of the hallmark of Fable and quite possibly one of the thing that was iconic/distinctive of the game. Turning everything into guild seals really just make this another typical XP based system with much less charm.
It also really screw with the organic feel of the Fable system, something that was one of the key selling point of the first game - If you're a brawler, you'll be a big guy, if you're a swift archer type, you'll be a lithe ninja type... and if you cast a lot of people, you'll crackle with untold power.
And if you're a completionist like me, you pretty much end up looking like a demi-god. The beauty of the system is that it only became a grind if you made it so (like I did) - if your favorite style is sword fighting with a bit of gunplay, you'll end up as a good swashbuckler naturally and while your magic will suck, you won't care.
But last night, I spent a good part of the evening casting fireballs to reach the kill 100 enemies with fireball gem to upgrade my gun and I than went ahead and bought the 3rd level melee damage upgrade with the guild seal I earned. Once that happened, it hit me how the idea that your fighting style defines your appearance and what you get good at is totally gone from Fable 3... which is a shame really.
Online Play
I'm not a big fan of online play. I subscribe to John Gabriel's Greater Fuckward Theory. Baring a few games, I have a similar view to Yahtzee on the whole thing. Having somebody join my Dead Rising 2 game and screw around didn't make the game any more enjoyable... so I'm extremely weary of joining any game atm.
In most game, that's not really an issue... however, in Fable 3, they are really trying to cram down the 'WE HAVE ONLINE PLAY!' thing here. There's several weapons that can only be attained by going to other player's world and several weapon upgrade that can only be attained by doing stuff online and while Fable 2 had the whole doll trading thing, aside from 1 achievements, it really didn't do much for you.
In my 'world', I have 2 swords - The Merchant's Bodyguard and Mr Stabby. When upgraded, The Merchant's Bodyguard gives you bonus when you play multiplayer (yay?). When Mr Stabby is upgraded, it make you more evil (and obviously, the upgrade require evil act as well) - but I'm playing a good game. In short, I got screwed. I'm using Hammers atm, because they at least have good (and not online required) upgrades... but I really dislike the slow ass cumbersome hammer and wish I could just use the swords instead. I'm being punished for not playing online by the randomiser that decided which sword would spawn in my world. Awesome, right?
Oh, and the magic change...
I don't really have anything to say about the Magic system. Weaving is nice, only being able to carry 2 spell instead of 3 is kinda meh. It more or less even out in my view.
With all that being said, I'm still enjoying the game. But it definitly feels like a step backward... like Fable 2 is the newer game and Fable 3 was made a couple years ago. A glossy menu doesn't make up for obfuscated information and streamlining and blandening of the game's leveling up system.
Any thoughts?
But here's what's been bugging me... it almost feels like Fable 3 is a downgrade from Fable 2.
The graphics are pretty much the same, you still have a loosely interesting main story which is just an excuse for you to dick around...
But what did we gain from it?
A nifty new menu, a weird social system, ton of grinding and a lost of 'organic-ness' in the system known as the road to rule and online play.
On the menu...
To me, the much talked about headquarters lost it's novelty fairly quickly. It was cool the first few times, but I'm not sure it's really any quicker. I hit start, wait a second for it all to load, walk to the room (or wait a second for the room icon to appear on the d-pad) and than I need to walk from one side of a room to another to get stuff.
How is this any faster than the old menu? I don't see it.
It's a lot prettier, can't argue... but it also comes with a lot of lost in information - You no longer have a stat page that shows you all the random stuff you used to do. You can no longer see the stats on your clothes (if they have any?). Even weapon need to be 'examined' which imply clicking in and then clicking out instead of seeing things right away.
In both game, it is possible to increase a town's wealth by buying stuff there and working there. This result in shop selling higher quality/level items. In Fable 2, you could flat out see a town's wealth... not in Fable 3... your only indication is the chatter of villager and the stales.
I'm not a big fan of all the information the new 'menu' has hidden away.
On the social system...
The social system in Fable has always been weird (people sure love them farts!), but it's even weirder now that you don't have the ability to choose which emote you'll use! Apparently, my character's first reaction when meeting a new person is to languorously dance with them - regardless of gender. Guess my Hero is that open minded (Unless I've totally missed how to change the emote, but I guess it doesn't matter, apparently I'm such a good dancer that even straight man want to be my BFF after one twirl).
And what gives with only being able to interact with 1 person at a time? This make increasing your popularity quite the chore (ties in with the grind aspect)... and well, since interacting with villagers and making friends earns you guild seals, it's actually a rather important to do now, so it's way more detrimental if you decide to ignore compared to Fable 2.
On the plus side, your wife is less likely to divorce you because you've been gone for 5 minutes now, seems the woman of Albion have build up their patience.
On the grinding...
There's a lot of grinding. Interacting with villagers is repeating the same action over and over again. You than do their quest (which is always a Fetch or Courier thing). Repeat if you want to get to another social level with them.
They also added 'decay' on houses, so every now and than you need to make a round of your property and repair all of them... which is really, really dumb, not fun and just make you waste a lot of time.
And the worse culprit are the special weapons... with upgrades attained after such fun milestone has 'kill 400 mercenary', 'make 30 friends', 'kill a 100 enemies with fireball' and so forth. Grind grind grind grind. Ugh.
And some of those grind tastic activities have to be done online (i.e. Give 20 gifts to xbox live players).
Now there was some grinding in Fable 2. After all, if you wanted to increase your Strenght, you had to beat stuff up with your swords... but the fact that you didn't have a meter going 25/300 made it a lot less glaring (to me anyway).
The road to rule
Don't like this change much. The orbs being split in 4 color/type was one of the hallmark of Fable and quite possibly one of the thing that was iconic/distinctive of the game. Turning everything into guild seals really just make this another typical XP based system with much less charm.
It also really screw with the organic feel of the Fable system, something that was one of the key selling point of the first game - If you're a brawler, you'll be a big guy, if you're a swift archer type, you'll be a lithe ninja type... and if you cast a lot of people, you'll crackle with untold power.
And if you're a completionist like me, you pretty much end up looking like a demi-god. The beauty of the system is that it only became a grind if you made it so (like I did) - if your favorite style is sword fighting with a bit of gunplay, you'll end up as a good swashbuckler naturally and while your magic will suck, you won't care.
But last night, I spent a good part of the evening casting fireballs to reach the kill 100 enemies with fireball gem to upgrade my gun and I than went ahead and bought the 3rd level melee damage upgrade with the guild seal I earned. Once that happened, it hit me how the idea that your fighting style defines your appearance and what you get good at is totally gone from Fable 3... which is a shame really.
Online Play
I'm not a big fan of online play. I subscribe to John Gabriel's Greater Fuckward Theory. Baring a few games, I have a similar view to Yahtzee on the whole thing. Having somebody join my Dead Rising 2 game and screw around didn't make the game any more enjoyable... so I'm extremely weary of joining any game atm.
In most game, that's not really an issue... however, in Fable 3, they are really trying to cram down the 'WE HAVE ONLINE PLAY!' thing here. There's several weapons that can only be attained by going to other player's world and several weapon upgrade that can only be attained by doing stuff online and while Fable 2 had the whole doll trading thing, aside from 1 achievements, it really didn't do much for you.
In my 'world', I have 2 swords - The Merchant's Bodyguard and Mr Stabby. When upgraded, The Merchant's Bodyguard gives you bonus when you play multiplayer (yay?). When Mr Stabby is upgraded, it make you more evil (and obviously, the upgrade require evil act as well) - but I'm playing a good game. In short, I got screwed. I'm using Hammers atm, because they at least have good (and not online required) upgrades... but I really dislike the slow ass cumbersome hammer and wish I could just use the swords instead. I'm being punished for not playing online by the randomiser that decided which sword would spawn in my world. Awesome, right?
Oh, and the magic change...
I don't really have anything to say about the Magic system. Weaving is nice, only being able to carry 2 spell instead of 3 is kinda meh. It more or less even out in my view.
With all that being said, I'm still enjoying the game. But it definitly feels like a step backward... like Fable 2 is the newer game and Fable 3 was made a couple years ago. A glossy menu doesn't make up for obfuscated information and streamlining and blandening of the game's leveling up system.
Any thoughts?
